State pushes for safe houses for child-prostitution victims

September 26, 2012|By Kathleen Haughney, Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE — Amid growing concern from Florida's capital to the White House over human trafficking, the head of the state's social-services agency outlined plans Tuesday to create a network of "safe houses" and long-term-treatment facilities where underage sexual workers and other children held against their will could seek refuge and protection.

"We have to have a different treatment program for these kids," Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins said in an interview Tuesday.

In a speech to a human-trafficking summit at Florida State University on Monday, Wilkins called for a "whole new process" to treat children who have been trafficked, particularly those forced into prostitution.

Asked Tuesday to elaborate, Wilkins acknowledged that details are still being sketched out. But a recent change in state law means that children caught being trafficked would enter child protective services rather than going into the juvenile-justice system as has been the case.

Wilkins said that putting these children into DCF's existing group homes or foster homes could wind up being dangerous, because they could expose other children to the risk of being trafficked, particularly if the victim is still in contact with a pimp.

Ideally, Wilkins said, he would like the state to fund two to three long-term facilities in North and Central Florida. Though most of the problems are concentrated in more densely populated South Florida, advocates think it would be beneficial to the victims — who come from a wide range of backgrounds — to remove them as far from the situation as possible.

Additionally, the state plans to work with existing community-based organizations to create "safe houses" — offering short-term treatment — before the children are moved to a long-term facility for more-intensive counseling and other treatment. Wilkins said standards for these facilities are still being developed, but that the department was reaching out to local social-services groups to see which may be interested in helping start programs in their areas.

The "safe houses" will likely be funded by shifting some money around in the child-welfare budget that goes to community providers, Wilkins said, though that is not set in stone.

The long-term residential-treatment options may be a bigger challenge; it's unclear how much they would cost to build and operate or where the state would get the money.

"We haven't figured it out," Wilkins said. "This will be something we'll be talking to the Legislature about this upcoming session."

Currently, Wilkins said about 100 children in the foster system are victims of some form of human trafficking, either forced prostitution or forced labor.

If two to three facilities are built, he estimated, they could serve 50 to 60 children and would focus largely on prostitution victims. Victims of forced labor would likely not require as extensive a treatment plan as victims of sex trafficking, Wilkins said.

"I'd like to serve zero," he added. "I'd like it to go away."

Wilkins' remarks come as state officials are putting the spotlight on human-trafficking crimes. Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters has been working on new treatment approaches to victims, and Attorney General Pam Bondi helped push legislation that increased penalties for people engaging in human trafficking.

According to a 2011 study by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, Florida ranks third behind California and Texas in the number of reports to the center's anti-trafficking hotline of people — both children and adults — held in what amounts to slavery and exploited for either sex or manual labor.

The state has been trying for several years to target traffickers, especially in Central and South Florida. In South Florida, recent cases included 39 Filipino workers forced to work for little or no pay in exclusive country clubs in Palm Beach County.

"Would you believe in this day that this is going on?" Bondi said Monday at the forum. "It's unbelievable."

The issue is also getting more attention nationally.

President Barack Obama, during a speech Tuesday at the Clinton Global Initiative, outlined new steps to stop human trafficking in the United States and overseas. A new executive order prohibits sex trafficking by government contractors, including large overseas subcontractors. The administration is also stepping up training for federal prosecutors, law enforcement and immigration judges to deal with the problem, Obama said.